"Drawing the consequences of Lubrizol" : The Senate committee of inquiry will present its conclusions on Thursday on the gigantic fire that occurred on September 26 at the Lubrizol automobile lubricants factory in Rouen, the long-term health consequences of which remain uncertain.
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“Very often, unfortunately, one disaster drives the other. It is not because there is the Covid that one must forget Lubrizol, not to draw the consequences from it and that is the aim of the commission. We are making proposals to prevent this from happening again, " said Senator Hervé Maurey, chairman of the commission of inquiry, interviewed by AFP. Created on October 10 unanimously by the Senate, the committee evaluated "the intervention of the State services in the management of the environmental, health and economic consequences of the fire" .
40 hours of hearing
The disaster had caused a huge cloud of black smoke 22 km long with fallout of soot into the Hauts-de-France. The fresh products (milk, vegetables) had ceased to be marketed in more than two hundred municipalities for three weeks. On September 26, nearly 9,505 tonnes of chemicals had burned: 5,253 tonnes at the Seveso high threshold Lubrizol site and 4,252 tonnes at the site of neighboring company Normandie Logistique, of which 1,600 belonged to Lubrizol.
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During forty hours of hearing, the senators did not spare their interlocutors, the mayor PS of Rouen Yvon Robert being seen for example qualified of “excellent lawyer of Lubrizol” by Christine Bonfanti-Dossat, rapporteur LR. Among the 80 or so hearings held, the president and chief executive officer of the Lubrizol group Éric Schnur, the ministers Christophe Castaner (Interior), Agnès Buzyn (Health) and Elisabeth Borne (Ecological transition), unionists and numerous experts were heard. All have sworn to tell the truth to the commission.
Causes of the claim still uncertain
The senators went to Rouen. "What struck us most, I think, was our visit to Lubrizol both because it was visually impressive and above all" because of the "trauma" of the staff, "all the more so were assaulted by people who called them murderers, " says Maurey. The commission also moved to the "valley of chemistry" in the Rhône, marked by a disaster in a refinery in Feysin in 1966 (18 dead). However, questions remain unanswered.
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For several weeks and for several months, residents of the Rouen conurbation were bothered by the smell of oil, headaches, nausea and even vomiting, raising concerns about long-term health risks. "We are making proposals for this long-term follow-up ," says Maurey. Another gray area, the ongoing investigation by the Paris prosecutor's office has not yet been able to determine the causes of the fire.
At the end of February, the company Lubrizol was placed under investigation for "spillage of harmful substances" and for shortcomings in the operation of its factory which caused "serious damage" to the environment. The company, which was able to partially restart in Rouen in mid-December, has been placed under judicial control. A bond of 375,000 euros and a "security" of 4 million euros to repair "human and environmental damage" possibly attributable to the fire were requested from the company owned by the American billionaire Warren Buffett.
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